Reading Chinese Science Fiction in the Age of Techno-Nationalism

This book is a comprehensive examination of contemporary Chinese science fiction under the framework of Chinese techno-nationalism, aimed at introducing the genre to both general and academic readers, and providing new in-depth perspectives on work that has been published in the early twenty-first century. While China has made technology an important pillar of its external power projection and internal management strategy, this book approaches contemporary Chinese SF as a complicated mode of both aspiration and subversion within the sphere of techno-nationalistic discourse. Using a general theoretical framework informed by the emergence and dominance of global neoliberalism, this book locates Chinese SF as part of a world literature that is concerned with class inequality, exploitative capitalism, and the ways in which new technology contributes to these problems. For those interested in the state of contemporary Chinese SF and its scholarship, this book also provides a review of recent developments as well as emerging trends. Its thematic chapters are organized in terms of different types of responses generated by techno-power and techno-nationalism: SF that addresses traditional Chinese culture and myth, SF that ruminates on the way China wields power internally and externally, SF that considers global concerns in terms of Chinese responsibility, and finally SF that critiques authoritarianism and censorship.